Railway Pension Investments Ltd Cuts Holdings in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Railway Pension Investments Ltd trimmed its position in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 14.6% during the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 481,639 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after selling 82,400 shares during the quarter. Visa accounts for approximately 1.5% of Railway Pension Investments Ltd’s portfolio, making the stock its 13th largest holding. Railway Pension Investments Ltd’s holdings in Visa were worth $126,416,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of the company. Long Run Wealth Advisors LLC boosted its position in shares of Visa by 2.5% in the first quarter. Long Run Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 1,519 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $424,000 after buying an additional 37 shares during the period. Alaethes Wealth LLC lifted its position in Visa by 0.4% during the 4th quarter. Alaethes Wealth LLC now owns 8,843 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $2,302,000 after acquiring an additional 37 shares in the last quarter. Jessup Wealth Management Inc boosted its holdings in Visa by 0.7% in the 1st quarter. Jessup Wealth Management Inc now owns 5,051 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $1,410,000 after acquiring an additional 37 shares during the period. Cordatus Wealth Management LLC grew its position in Visa by 0.3% in the first quarter. Cordatus Wealth Management LLC now owns 10,793 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $3,012,000 after acquiring an additional 37 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Garden State Investment Advisory Services LLC raised its stake in shares of Visa by 1.8% during the fourth quarter. Garden State Investment Advisory Services LLC now owns 2,191 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $571,000 after purchasing an additional 38 shares during the period. 82.15% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research firms recently weighed in on V. Bank of America reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and set a $297.00 price target (down from $305.00) on shares of Visa in a report on Wednesday, July 10th. Macquarie reissued an “outperform” rating and issued a $300.00 price target on shares of Visa in a report on Wednesday, July 24th. StockNews.com upgraded Visa from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, August 9th. Royal Bank of Canada reduced their target price on Visa from $315.00 to $311.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, July 24th. Finally, Citigroup cut their price target on shares of Visa from $321.00 to $319.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, July 24th. Six research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-one have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $308.50.

Visa Price Performance

Shares of V stock traded up $0.22 during mid-day trading on Tuesday, hitting $268.43. 816,019 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 7,124,558. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.54, a quick ratio of 1.37 and a current ratio of 1.37. The firm has a market cap of $490.94 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.03, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.89 and a beta of 0.95. The company’s 50-day simple moving average is $265.87 and its 200-day simple moving average is $273.18. Visa Inc. has a twelve month low of $227.78 and a twelve month high of $290.96.

Visa (NYSE:V) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, July 23rd. The credit-card processor reported $2.42 EPS for the quarter, hitting analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.42. The business had revenue of $8.90 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $8.92 billion. Visa had a net margin of 54.72% and a return on equity of 51.94%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $2.16 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts expect that Visa Inc. will post 9.91 earnings per share for the current year.

Visa Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, September 3rd. Shareholders of record on Friday, August 9th will be issued a $0.52 dividend. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.77%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, August 9th. Visa’s payout ratio is 23.24%.

Visa Profile

Visa Inc operates as a payment technology company in the United States and internationally. The company operates VisaNet, a transaction processing network that enables authorization, clearing, and settlement of payment transactions. It also offers credit, debit, and prepaid card products; tap to pay, tokenization, and click to pay services; Visa Direct, a solution that facilitates the delivery of funds to eligible cards, deposit accounts, and digital wallets; Visa B2B Connect, a multilateral business-to-business cross-border payments network; Visa Cross-Border Solution, a cross-border consumer payments solution; and Visa DPS that provides a range of value-added services, including fraud mitigation, dispute management, data analytics, campaign management, a suite of digital solutions, and contact center services.